About Me

My Walk for All the Grandchildren, to confront the perils of climate change, started on March 8, 2009, in Galveston, Texas, and ended on August 29, in Rouses Point, NY. I thank all of you that followed this blog, sending me comments, and even joining me on my walk.
After my Walk I started a Carbon Addiction 10-Step Program to help us all decrease our carbon footprint.
Three blogs address different aspects of my efforts: ForAllTheGrandchildren covers the Walk and new Climate Walks; on my ClimateChangeChildren blog I talk with children who care about the planet and its climate; and 10stepCAP registers communication among the Carbon Addiction Program members.
My website will tell you more about these activites: climatewalk.homestead.com.
You can click it in the links below.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The 10StepCAP focus for the month of June will be WATER, and to deal with our sadness and devastation about the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill we will organize Water Soundings as our action for the month. The instructions below are posted on the official 10stepcap.com website.

Organize a Water SoundingRegister it as an event on the Blog and/or on Facebook 10StepCAP Group How to organize a Water Sounding: Gather friends, family, neighbors, and strangers, in a circle by a natural body of water. Open with words of welcome, a poem or other reading. Speak of the water and center yourselves in the space and moment. Listen in silence to the water and its surroundings. The silence may be longer or shorter as you wish, but don't short-change yourselves. If you have time, you may scatter and each person may spend some time writing or drawing, or making nature art in any way they wish. Come back together to share your reflections and images. You may use any props you have - bells, sage, cloths - but all you really need is yourselves. It would be desirable to avoid using gas powered vehicles to go to the Sounding, If possible, walk, bike, canoe or skate. Taking the bus beats driving. But you know what you must do - simply pay attention.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Hi, I just calculated my carbon footprint. It came up to 8.71. The English website works well for Brazil. It said the average for industrialized countries was 11. Does that mean that the US is double that average? I am of course way above Brazil's average. But need to work a lot to get to the global target.
This is very interesting. Bete

Greta reports from Bethlehem, PA:

I calculated my footprint with the US version of carbonfootprint.com, the short test, and scored 11.37, which is low for the US but high for the rest of the world. Yes, Bete, the average US carbon footprint is double that of the other industrialized countries.

I hope to use a couple of the other tests to see if there are significant differences. I plan to do so before the end of the month.

Monday, May 10, 2010

My, oh my - it's already May 10! I've been negligent about communicating with anyone who's checking this blog. Most of my energy is going into the Census work I'm doing for eight or ten weeks - I'm starting my fourth week today.

Sometimes it feels as if the Climate Change issue has gone away. Do you get that sense? But maybe like me you get email notices, articles, requests for signatures and calls to your representatives - and you're aware that the ice is still melting, islands are drowning, weather patterns are shifting with major flooding and wind storms in some areas and long droughts in others. Usually it the vulnerable populations are already victims of poverty and injustice, living in shanty towns on slopes that sustain mudslides, or trying to eke out a living in dry, windswept areas. People whose lives have depended on the bounty of the water find that the fish are disappearing, just as other wildlife is affected by the changing climate.

Two big issues - Water and Peak Oil - weave in and out of the Climate Instability situation, threatening humanity with a triple whammy that could mean immense suffering and violence. The rush for fossil fuels is not abating, despite the information on carbon emissions (the increasing levels in the atmosphere, close to 400 ppm), and in spite of the major accidents with coal (loss of miners' lives), oil (the terrible spill in the Gulf of Mexico) and natural gas (the depredation of the water table and the explosions). Nuclear disasters are waiting to happen around the world, and the problem of disposal of spent uranium has not been resolved.

So our efforts must continue - as people who acknowledge our place in this culture of addiction to fossil fuels we need to serve as examples in any way we can, and we must spread the word, letting others know about our actions.

Tomorrow I will highlight in a new blog entry some of the actions 10-steppers have shared with me. I'm trying to let everyone know that I've designated May as the month to focus on our carbon footprints. So tomorrow I'll also share a bit about the carbon footprint tests we can use.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Once again we will be walking for the Earth's Climate, for all our grandchildren, for the animals, and for all the vulnerable people who are first in line to suffer the consequences of the Climate Instability. Everyone is invited to join the walk for the whole 6.7 miles or for any portion of it.

A new group, Gas Truth, convened to deal with the calamitous threat to groundwater in many parts of PA and elsewhere, due to the Marcellus Shale drilling, will walk with the Climate Walkers organized by Greta.

We will meet at 10 am this Saturday, April 24, at 5th and Hamilton Streets in Allentown. Our route will take us along Hamilton, Hanover, W. Broad, Main, and Church Streets, then down across the New Street Bridge to South Bethlehem. We will end at the Wildflower Cafe around 1:00 pm, still in time to enjoy the festive spirit of Spring on 4th and the annual Chili Contest - Wildflower's Michelle makes a great vegan version.

The Official Launching of the 10StepCAP will occur soon after we arrive at the Wildflower Cafe. It would be wonderful to have many 10StepCAP members present. We now have 25 members, 16 of whom are from the Lehigh Valley. The others are: Massachusetts, 1; Texas, 4; New Mexico, 2; and Brazil, 2. Hopefully there will be others soon as this is the week we go public and at least two of our members have sent out notices to their contacts. I hope to put the Program out on Facebook yet this weekend.

Friday, April 9, 2010

I have created a website for 10StepCAP in anticipation of going public on April 24th during an Earth Day event here in Bethlehem. The website is still under construction and open to creative suggestions. Please check it out at 10stepcap.com. There's a blog on the site - leave a comment if you have time.